


Scabs and Scars

by UWotMaTe



Category: Banana Bus Squad
Genre: Care Taker Smitty, Doctor Tyler, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD, Veteran Craig, Veteran Jay, more characters added as they show up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:27:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9820532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UWotMaTe/pseuds/UWotMaTe
Summary: Smitty and Tyler work together to help two vets heal after their return home.





	1. Dogs

**Author's Note:**

> Hoping that both Jay and Craig get better soon :( my heart goes out to them.

Dogs. That was the word, not the images, that kept circulating through his head as the plane shook. Turbulence now scared him more than it ever had, more than it ever should. Sweat fell from his brow the way rain falls from the sky during a hurricane. His hands shook so bad he had to stuff them in his lap to keep from worrying the others. He was hyperventilating and going through every breathing exercise he could remember to stop it.

Dogs. 

Their goofy smiles. Their excitement when they finally see you after you've been gone for only an hour (to them it's been ages). Their need to sit on you even when they're too big. Their purity. Their stupidity. Their innocence. He loves dogs. There so many kinds and types. They come in all sizes. From the giant brother of bears, the Russian bear hunting dogs, to annoying little bug eyed chihuahuas. How each dog had its own wild personality. How lovable they were. He loves dogs.

He thought about how when he got back to the states, he'd be able to get one. He'd be able to hold it and protect it from fireworks. And the dog would protect him from the same fireworks.

He spared a glance out the window once he had calmed down. He spotted the bountiful sea of soft fluffy clouds that rolled the was the sea does. An ocean of cotton balls. Comforting and relaxing and calming. His hands slowly began to steady. The turbulence didn't scare him as bad. That's a lie. It did. But he refused to let it. He knew the irrational fear was controllable. This was a plane. This wasn't the battle field. This shouldn't scare him. He wouldn't let it scare him. 

He couldn't figure out his emotions when his plane finally hit the ground and he, finally, after years, felt his feet meet the soils of home, at last. He wasn't sure if he should cry with joy, or sob because he'd been gone for so long, or weep because in a single moment he could wake up and this would all vanish. It always seems to vanish. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket. At first it startled him. He forgot he had a phone or that it could vibrate or what it meant. It took him a second to realize it was a phone and nothing more. He held it up to his ear cautiously. 

“Hello?”

“Hey. It's Tyler, your doctor. Uh, I’m going to be a little late in picking you up. Do me a favor? There's a food court and a gift shop. Not too far from it should be a small lounge, a-a room of couches and magazines. Can you wait for me there? It should be quiet. You shouldn't get bothered. That ok with you, dude?”

Craig appreciated how softly the man spoke. How he was careful with his volume and his excitement. How he was aware that this man had been through hell and was so easily triggered. He was considerate. He nodded.

“Yeah. I can do that.”

“Alright. Thanks. And I apologize again for the wait. Be there in a bit.” And he hung up. Craig stood for a moment lost and unsure what to do. Slowly he reminded himself of his given instructions and where he was supposed to go. He hobbled over to the over crowded and way too loud food court and struggled to find the lounge. He was immediately relieved when he found it. There was an immediate difference in the noise and crowds. It all just stopped. Like the pulse of a dead man. Gone cold and still. It died.

He felt safer in the lounge. He sat as far away from the door as he could possibly get. His small case of belongings were his only source of comfort beyond the stillness of the lounge. He gripped the handle so tight his knuckles were as white as the annoyingly bright walls. 

He watched every face that walked in and near the lounge. He studied every character. He saw businessman stressed by the lateness of their flight. Lovers excited for their vacation. Families exhausted from the drive and relieved to see food and bathrooms. And in the mesh of chaos, faces that reminded him of people he'd seen, people he'd killed, people he'd-

He spotted another face much like his own. Eyes untrusting of all and any who passed. Uneasy and jumpy and sick with worry and yet stuffed with relief. The face of a man who's seen too much horror for his age. A survivor much like himself. He calmed himself greatly and offered a comforting aura to invite the boy over, to sit by someone like him, to take comfort in knowing that they weren't alone. Their dog tags caught each other’s eyes. Like beacons in the darkness. Brothers.

The boy caught his eye and instantly took comfort in the welcome. He moved quickly, like a wounded dog moves to its beloved owner. He sat quickly and drew his knees to his chest. They sat besides each other in comfortable silence. Together they watched the doors. They watched every face. They watched every story. And they reflected on their sins alone in silence and yet together in screams.

Eventually, a frighteningly tall man stepped through the door. He was soft in the face with sharp blue eyes. He spotted the two and smiled gently. He instantly slowed his pacing and cautiously approached the two. It was like a dance, the way he moved. Each step was light and well measured. The last thing he wanted to do was startle them. 

He stopped several feet away. He knew his boundaries. He knew what to do and what not to do. He kept his hands exposed to show he had nothing to hurt them with. He kept his distance to prove he respected their past and didn't want to hurt or scare them.

“I'm Tyler. You must be Jay and Craig. And I right?” 

The two glanced at each other, taking in the other’s name and memorizing it. They wished Tyler had included their ranks and yet they were thankful that he left ranks out of this. They turned back to Tyler with a soft and firm nod before climbing to their feet. Their spines were perfectly straight. They held themselves as they'd been taught, full attention. Tyler gently turned towards the door.

“Common. Let's get you two home.”

“Uh, sir, we don't, I don't, have a-” Jay began. He cut himself off unable to fully get the words out. He thought of the last letter he wrote home and the last letter he got back. He hadn't been there when he should have been. He hadn't been there, and now they were gone. Tyler seemed to understand instantly and offered a warm and welcoming smile.

“Please be assured that you do have a home. I'm aware of your situations. I have an assistant who has humbly offered to provide the two of you with a home. That is, if you accept it.”

Again they were met with silence. Craig thought about being on the streets. At this point in time, he wasn't sure he could handle that.

“A home sounds nice,” he spoke, and he spoke for the both of them. A shared thought. Jay nodded only to confirm this. Tyler nodded and again gestured towards the door.

“Let's get you two home then.”

The two followed their doctor out of the lounge and through the court to the parking garage. Tyler kept a conversation afloat to help ease the tension. 

Dogs. 

He found he held the tension at bay best with dogs. Both men appeared to enjoy dogs. Jay liked the smaller dogs, the ones that could fit easily on your lap. The ones you could let sleep on the bed and not notice they were there. The cuddly ones. Craig liked the playful dogs. The ones you could trick easily by pretending to throw a stick. The ones too big to sit on your lap but still tried. They both loved dogs. And Tyler himself had a dog who was playful and cuddly he loved to talk about. 

He shifted through the stations to find something soft paced and quiet. Something easy to talk over and ignore. Something that wouldn't startle the two. The music was drowned out by thought and talk of dogs. But it played nonetheless. 

Jay stared out the window and soaked in the scenery that passed him. The airport sat upon a vast, empty plain that stretched on seemingly endless. Slowly, it gave way to a vein of roads that lead to the artery of highways that lead to the heart of a city. They passed through the heart and fell again into a much calmer pulse of a town. 

They approached a smaller house compared to its many neighbors. 

Chalk decorated the side walls and streets. Poorly drawn dogs and small streets for toy cars. Small sketches of stick figure families. Mom. Dad. Uncle Dewey. Me. A big wheel sat knocked over on its side in the front yard. A doll missing an arm sat hunched over on a small swing dangling from a large tree supporting a small but sturdy tree house. Flowers stood tall and proud along the base of the tree and along the base of the house. 

A kindly old woman sat on her porch besides a much younger woman. They wore tired and wise smiles. The younger woman balanced a small infant on her knee. The babe stuffed his cheeks with the arm of the armless doll. He waved at the passing car.

Tyler waved back with a small chuckle, “That little guy’s growing up fast, wow.” Craig spared a glance at the child and women. He thought of the children and women much like them he'd seen abroad. He didn't want to see any of them. 

Tyler stopped in front of the smaller house at last and shut off the engine. He watched the door before climbing out of the car. The two followed.

They spotted the movement of the windows and knew that the door would be open in no time. A young man pulled the heavy door away and opened his house to the two strangers. 

Compared to the many men Jay and Craig had met, this one was small, he shrank in on himself to appear smaller, the way an abused dog does to avoid further abuse. He stared at the two the way a person who'd seen their own fair share of hell does but is trying to turn a new leaf, he's trying to keep others from hurting how he did, even if and when he was terrified. 

Tyler threw his arm over the boy's shoulder and brought him out of his shell of his house and out into the open.

“Craig, Jay, this is Smitty. Smitty, Craig and Jay. Show them around the place and I'll get their things, yeah?” Smitty nodded flashing a nervous smile at the two. He parted from Tyler and hesitantly moved to follow orders. He motioned towards the two to follow and they cautiously did so.

He lead them through the place easily, showing them both their rooms, bathrooms, and where everything was. Tyler dropped off their belongings respectively and the two left them alone to settle in. 

Smitty met Tyler outside. He kept his voice low to keep the conversation I heard by nosy children and pesky neighbors or the two new visitors. He fidgeted with a loose string that dangled at his sleeves and tickled his hands. 

“I leave them alone for the most part, right? I keep the noise to a minimum, don't approach when they have an attack, keep myself light and small. No threats? Any other… rules?”

Tyler chuckled lightly and put a firm hand on Smitty’s shoulder. The grip startled Smitty to drop the string and now fiddle with under his nails instead.

“Relax. If you're worked up, they get worked up. You know how when Mrs. Downs gets upset, Philip gets upset?” Smitty nodded. He glanced over at his young neighbor and her mother and son. “They work the same way. They've been through hell. They're scared. They're going to turn to you as an anchor. They will follow you. Like ducklings. Like Philip and Mrs. Downs. If you keep calm, they'll keep calm.” 

Smitty nodded again and forced himself to relax. Tyler waved and plopped himself back into his car and drove away. Smitty watched him as he went. He sighed heavily before turning to renter his house. The odd silence bothered him. He knew two people lived with him now. He had kindly taken them in. He was here to support them. Yet he wasn't entirely sure if he'd let in two scared dogs or two scared bears. He felt like he was a rabbit under the careful watching eyes of two starving hawks. He felt too exposed. 

He made his way to the kitchen to start cooking. What do you do to help earn the trust of starved or abused animals? You offer them food. You put it on a plate and leave it before them, and you back away and leave them alone to eat. You do it again. And again. And again. And eventually they'll learn that you give them food. You're not going to hurt them. Eventually, they'll let you stay with them while they eat. And in more time, they'll let you pet them. They'll trust you. So he threw some bacon into the pan and began to cook.


	2. Limbs

The smell of bacon was something Craig had missed greatly. Packages of minute meals were dust in his mouth. The occasional chocolate bar was soon dirt. Bacon, now bacon he had missed. 

Smitty had been so very careful to keep watch over his cooking. He wasn't exactly the best. He could easily attest to setting off the smoke alarms to the point he had to remove the batteries when he cooked. The local fire department knew him by name. Often they'd call just to check in, make sure he was eating if it'd been awhile since they got a call. Tyler, of course, was partially to blame. His friendship with the captain often ended up with weekly, sometimes daily, visits from the crew. 

But today of all days he didn't want to set off the alarms. He didn't want to startle his visitors. His eyes never left the sizzling bacon. He kept the grease splatter to a minimum, cleaning it as quickly as he could. He piled the bacon in heaps on the plates. He followed it with eggs and a glass of orange juice. He carefully brought up a plate and a glass at a time. He set them on the floor and knocked softly on the door before bringing food up to the other. This had been something his mother used to do for him when he was younger. 

Craig opened the door expecting to find Smitty there with something to say. All he found was the meal provided. He grinned a bit seeing the two sunny side up eggs placed above the smiling bacon. It was still steaming and warm. He collected the plate and carried it inside his room. He picked at the eggs for a moment. The yolk jiggled and bled. The bacon was crisp, not burnt, still flexible. Perfect. He'd forgotten what bacon tasted like and once he remembered he wondered how he'd been able to forget it at all. Bacon was heaven. 

Jay had to agree. He sat back on his bed. That was something he'd missed too. Cots were so much more stiff. They didn't do the back well. If anything they made the neck sore. Bad for aim and training. The first thing he'd done when he closed his door was fall back on the bed and let the sheets smother him. They smelled of lavender and peaches, odd combination, but a thousand times better than the sent sweat and blood. The comforter was the perfect amount of fluffy. The over blanket was softer than anything he could remember. Even the carpet was soft. Everything was soft. A break from the constant stone and dirt that he'd been living on. This comfort added with the fresh food had him convinced he had died. That the plane ride here was his crossing to the other side. That Smitty was this angel sent by God to help him forget his horrors.

He practically inhaled his food. Partially from habit. He'd been taught that you have to eat fast. You got food twice. You were given three minutes to eat it. It was the same old plain oats, but it was food. And in no time he'd be running laps till he puked. 

He wanted to take his time with it, honest he did. It had been too long since he'd had anything this good. But habits are hard demons to kill. The bacon was gone too fast. The eggs even faster. 

With his stomach full and his back at rest in the memory foam and comforter, Jay found himself completely unconscious in mere moments. He could have easily passed out on the floor and never known. Not till he woke up. 

Craig couldn't sleep. The bed was sweet to him, but it’s sirens call was easily cast aside by his need to explore. He couldn't trust his new surroundings. Not yet. He inspected everything. He checked the closet first. He'd learned quickly just how dangerous closets can be.

Much to his surprise and pleasure, there wasn't much inside. A handful of hangers with a couple forgotten shirts that looked a little too big for Smitty. Some boxes of forgotten picture books. A small stack of actual books. And a dusty snow globe of New-York.

No armed enemy soldier. No hiding collection of children. No blood bath. No evil secrets. Just a regular closet.

He checked under the bed half expecting to find a hiding pair of trembling siblings, a hidden body, a bomb, anything. All he found was carpet. 

He cautiously left his room having explored it all. He took with him his nearly sparkling dishes. The hall was clean and barely decorated. The light blue wallpaper was soothing in a way. He'd been so used to the sand ruined yellow walls of the crumbling buildings, seeing any walls intact was a nice change. 

A few family photos hung on the walls. The smiling mother and father with their son. It made Craig smile a bit seeing how tiny Smitty had once been, and how after who knows how many years, the man hadn't changed much. 

He moved down stairs. He winced at the groans of the old stairs. He took note of that. He could use it as a sort of alarm. They could let him know if and when any one was coming near him or going away from him. 

He was afraid of this world vanishing. That the stairs would groanand he'd be met by his death. He clung desperately to the railing to anchor himself to the dream. His feet clung to the carpet.

The world didn't vanish. 

Still he clung. He cautiously stepped out into the den. A tv hung on the wall. A fire place rested beneath it, gated off and decorated with small glass figurines of animals and angels, something Craig thought elderly women would collect. A dining table separated the fireplace from the couch and the two recliners. Coasters were placed evenly apart. Blankets lay draped over the couch. It looked warm and inviting. He noted that he'd definitely be taking advantage over that.

He moved to the kitchen. Smitty was scrubbing away at the greasy pan. Music played gently from his phone set off to the side. Craig took the moment to inspect the kitchen. It was small. The kind you really shouldn't try to put a table in. The kind that doubled as the laundry room. The washer and dryer stacked on top of each other, giving the cramped space just a bit more room. That room was eaten by the table too big for its home. Foldable chairs surrounded it. 

Besides this was a handful of closets, a bathroom, and Smitty’s room, (Craig figured he could hold off on exploring those for now) he found that he was satisfied with what he'd discovered. 

He made his way to the small back yard. A busted sprinkler system gurgled water, creating a mud puddle deep enough to swallow a child whole. Grass struggled to live. Weeds clustered together along the fence. 

The place could very easily be home. There's a saying that home is where the heart is. Craig could easily shoot that saying down. His heart had been everywhere. In the dirt, beyond enemy territory, on the operating table, on the battlefield, face to face with an enemy soldier, in his hands shaped as a grenade. And none of it was ever home. This. This was home. Home is where you can rest easily at night without fear. Besides people you know and trust. Home is where the heart heals.

He sat outside on the porch. He picked at the peeling paint and watched a caterpillar wiggle in a spider’s web. He watched the colors of the sky shift and change as the sun fell. He listened to the gentle chit-chat of the two women next door and the cooing of the baby. He listened to the running water inside and the buzzing washer. 

He found that he liked these sounds. These were good sounds. Safe sounds. Sounds he thought he'd never get to hear again. He was so accustomed to the cries of men, of friends, in battle. And bombs going off to his left, to his right, up ahead, behind him, everywhere. He was so used to the sounds of the sirens telling everyone to get down. He was used to the sound of mothers sobbing over their lost children and orphans weeping into their dead mother’s skirts. 

He never wanted to join the military. He aspired to be great. He wanted to be a director. He wanted to do something with his life and make his parents proud. They'd see his name appear in the screen and smile. But college was an expensive luxury he couldn't acquire. So he joined the military to help pay for it. He never thought he'd get sent overseas. He never wanted to be part of what he'd seen, what he'd done. 

In the stillness of the backyard, in the sanctuary of the silence, he could only hear the battle. The war. 

He stared down at his hands. They were bathed in blood. So much so, no amount of soap could ever clean them. His finger was permanently arched, ready to pull the trigger at any given moment. They shook. But not a lot. Shaky hands can cost a life. He'd been taught how to remain perfectly steady in the heat of battle. But he wasn't in battle. So they shook.

He hated them. 

There are things that tie memories to events. Smitty had a snow globe. Inside the orb was New-York city. The windows glowed in the dark. It had been given to him as a gift from an ex of his. He hid it in a box in the closet. It was a beautiful snow globe. But it reminded him of what he was better than. It reminded him of times he'd moved past. It reminded him of his own scars. And he didn't want to remember the bad times. So he got rid of it. Out of sight out of mind. The cruel physical embodiment of memories was gone and forgotten and with it went his pain.

But what do you do when it's your very hands that remind you of the terror you need to forget? Craig knew he should be thankful that he even had his hands at all. He'd seen many a men missing limbs. 

Company B, Fourth Battalion, had been sent out to help the wounded. The nurses were up to their necks with injured and dying soldiers. A fellow named Benjamin Knot had been his partner. They were coming back from camp when their truck tire met a land mine neither of them saw.

Craig sat up and found Ben several feet away. He was staring up at the sky with this look of peace drawn about him. Craig knew this look to be a rare one amongst his fellow soldiers. This wasn't a look of peace but acceptance. In that moment, Ben had accepted his death and he was staring up at the sky searching for heaven. Looking for the staircase he'd heard so much about.

Craig crawled over as quickly as he could. Instinct took over and he desperately began to try and save the man’s life. He applied pressure on the man’s abdomen where a large chunk of flesh was missing. The sight of it, the sound of it, made him want to puke but he didn't. 

Ben fell back to earth when he felt Craig. He smiled softly, “I can't feel my legs.” 

Craig only muttered a hasty, “I know, I know” in response to keep Ben quiet. He spared a glance back at Ben’s legs and wanted to scream. They were gone. Just gone. His left leg was torn just above the knee, the right was missing half a shin and his foot. They were gone. Ben let out a small sound.

“How'd my arm get over there?” Craig froze. He looked over to where Ben was staring off to. There it was. Several feet away and connected only by a splattered trail of blood. Ben laughed lightly.

“I'm not gonna survive this am I?”

“Shut the fuck up, you know you will!” Craig busied himself by trying to use torn cloth as a tourniquet to help stop the bleeding from his legs and arm. His hands slid and slipped. There was so much blood it was as if he was trying to tie a water balloon shut with slime. He couldn't get it tight enough.

“Mama’s gonna be pissed. She told me- God damn it. She told to come home.”

“You'll get home, just hold on!”

“I lied to them, Craig. I lied to everybody. Told them all I'd be coming home. Told my wife. Told Matthew, he's my ten year old son. Told mama. I lied to everybody.”

“You didn't lie. You're going to be ok, you're gonna get home-!”

Ben caught his arm to stop his movements. He locked his eyes in place. Craig could see the color draining as rapidly as water leaks from a busted faucet. Ben shook his head gently.

“Tell them that I tried. Will you do that for me? Make me a hero. I want my son to be proud of me. I want my wife to know I fought every step of the way. I want mama to know that I tried. Will you do that for me? Please?”

Craig stared down at this man. This man he'd known for years. This man he's fought besides since camp. This man he's laughed with, cried with, screamed with. His best friend. He was losing too much blood too fast. There was nothing Craig to do to stop it. He stared at the fountains of blood that seemed deep into the dirt. He nodded.

“I will. I promise.”

“Good man.”

Those were his last words. He died half way through them. He died staring at Craig. He died a bleeding mess in Craig's hands, those filthy, bloody hands! And Craig watched him go. 

He put his head into his hands with a trembling breath. He couldn't figure it out. How come he got to come home, fully intact, alive, and mostly unharmed, when men like Ben continued to fight and die? Where was the fairness in that? 

He could still feel it gushing between his fingers. He could feel Ben’s pulse slowly fade. He could still feel the goop. He couldn't feel his hair. He couldn't feel his head. Only Ben. Only that moment. Only the gun. And only the war.

Smitty shut off the water and glanced out the window. He spotted Craig instantly. He thought for a second. He'd only just met the man. He had no experience in dealing with vets. He didn't exactly know what to do, but he knew he needed to be there as the sponge to their terrors in order to make them feel safe again.

He carefully stepped outside, allowing himself to make little noises that way Craig knew he was coming. He sat besides him a small distance apart, allowing the man space to breathe.

“You alright?”

“No.”

“Is there anything I can do? Anything you need?” He wanted to ask if Craig wanted to talk about it. That was a bad idea. That was something Craig would need to discus with Tyler, a real therapist, not just some assistant. He didn't want to disturb the still bleeding scar, so he'd gently applied a bandage and worked around it for now.

“Time. I need time. You've given me everything else. Thank you.” Smitty nodded and left. Time meant space. He knew that one. He'd learned that one awhile ago with a hurricane of a man he hoped he'd never see again. Time meant space. 

Craig watched Smitty go. He was torn. On one hand he wanted the space and time. But on the other he craved Smitty’s company. The man was quiet and soft spoken. He was calming in every way. He was a stuffed bear in the sense that Craig was a frightened child. But Craig knew he had to grow up. So he let the teddy bear go and he returned to his thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my birthday today. Spent my birthday money donating to the GoFundMe for Jay. Hope he recovers quickly


	3. Doctor, Doctor!

He woke up in the darkest hours of the night. He had no memory of where he was or why. He stared up at the ceiling and freaked at the soft cushioning of the mattress. It took a moment for him to finally remember what had happened. He sat up slowly just to make sure it wasn't a dream. It wasn't, thank god almighty, it wasn't. Everything was still there. He spotted his dishes, licked clean, resting besides his bed on the floor. Remembrance of the bacon haunted his tastebuds and he smiled.

He eased himself off the bed and scooped them up. The house was eerily quiet. Nothing moved but him. He winced when his door squeaked open. He silently slipped out into the hallway and scooted past Craig’s room. The stairs were perhaps the biggest threat to this stealth operation he'd put himself in. The old things didn't exactly like the silence. They happily sang out as he moved. He threw his eyes to the doors he figured hid away the sleeping others. Still no movement. 

Finally he was at the bottom of the stairs. He felt a relief as the weight of stress and anxiety fell from his shoulders and set him free. He moved steadily across the den and into the kitchen. A gentle breeze slipped between his hair and his face. He set the dishes in the sink and peeked past the closed blinds to see if Smitty had left the window open. It was shut.

He turned to find where the fuck the breeze was coming from. Maybe it was the heating system breaking down. He was startled to find the back door slightly ajar. A soft and tiny glow escaped the darkness and slipped into the room. Curiosity drove him more than anything else. He found his feet leading him without a thought against it. He pulled the door open and stepped outside. 

Smitty leaned against the railing that lined the porch. He stared down at his phone in his hands. The small glow came from that of the bug zapper. The man glanced up at the sudden company. He smiled and set his phone aside. Jay figured this was his welcome to sit and chat and he happily moved to do so. 

It had been far too long since he'd done this sort of thing. When he was on patrol maybe another officer would accompany him, else he'd be alone with only his thoughts. He craved company.

“You're up late.”

“Just woke up actually.” 

Smitty smiled warmly. Jay wasn't sure how he managed to spot the smile through the dark. But he was glad he had. It made him feel safe in a strange way. 

“I didn't mean to wake you-” Smitty fidgeted slightly. 

“You didn't.” He felt himself adjusting his own tone of voice. He could hear it echo back to him and it sounded odd, not his own. He'd become so accustomed to the gentle apologies to families that he expected the sorrow stained voice to forever haunt him. And yet here he was, speaking to Smitty as if he was reassuring an old friend not to worry. 

The two sat outside and talked for hours. Jay loved how easily Smitty was able to lift the spirits of things. It was a natural talent for the man to bring about light hearted giggles. He was a drug that allowed Jay to forget about his past and smile because he knew his future held this man in his sights and he hoped to God he'd stay. Neither noticed when the sun had started its steady climb across the sky. Shadows fell about their feet. The birds began their daily ritual of screaming. Only when Smitty had yawned (his body not accustomed to sleepless nights) did they both agree to go inside. 

Craig had woken slowly. The bed was a witch who cast a spell about him preventing him from leaving. His back had never felt so at ease. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes before tossing his legs off the side of his bed in a wild attempt to start his day. 

The gentle ring of laughter from downstairs drew a smile about his face. It had been so longer since he'd heard such a sound. He'd heard laughter back at camp. But it was never like this. This was that laughter infants have, the sweet pure kind. It was a lullaby that beaconed him both towards it and back to bed. 

The sound of a TV disrupted the rest of the stillness, further pulling Craig from his sleep. The smell of food plucked him from his room and dropped him off in the hallway. His feet moved mechanically towards the joy. 

Jay sat happily sprawled across the couch. He chirped a friendly welcome when Craig finally made it down the stairs. He took a seat besides the other. Smitty stepped into the room balancing their plates. He set them down gently on the coffee table.

“The remote’s probably under one of the cushions,” he laughed upon spotting Jay searching around wildly for one. Craig found it first. He scrolled through the available channels. 

Smitty quickly cleaned up what he could for the time being. He grabbed his own plate of food and made his way over to join his house mates. The two were arguing over what to watch. Jay easily ended said fight when he spotted Spongebob. Without hesitation or question, Craig turned it on and the two fell silent. Children, Smitty decided, the two were essentially large children. Man childs!

“Craig, you have an appointment at two,” Smitty informed. Craig shuffled a bit in his seat. He knew exactly what the appointment was for and he wasn't looking forward to it. He figured it was a good idea to get this shit done and out of the way. Still this wasn't just ripping off a bandage. This was ripping off the bandage and poking at it. But in a strangely helpful way? Therapy was weird.

He dreaded the passage of time. Never had it moved in such a way. It was slow, painfully slow, and yet it passed far too fast. He lost count of the seconds because he felt he was waiting an eternity for them to pass. Took his eyes off the clock for only a moment and a lifetime passed him by and he had no recollection on where it went or why. 

He felt as though he'd blacked out. There was this gap between moments. One moment he was on the couch arguing with Jay about which spongebob episode was the best. The next, Smitty was on the ground struggling to breath past his sudden fit of laughter and Jay was smiling like an idiot. And the next, it's dead silent. He didn't know where Smitty went. He could hear Jay in the kitchen. And he watched heavy heartedly as the truck he'd ridden in only a day ago pulled onto the street. 

Smitty suddenly ghosted down the stairs to greet the visitor. The two spoke softly at the door before Smitty stepped back to let Tyler inside. 

“Craig, you ready to go bud?” He nodded before peeling himself from the couch. He followed Tyler out the house, glancing one over his shoulder back at Smitty and Jay. 

“How’ve you been?”

“Tired.”

Tyler chuckled a bit. Craig turned his back to his new home and got into the car. He watched as Smitty stayed near the door. Tyler adjusted his seat a bit before driving off. Craig watched as home grew smaller and smaller as the distance doubled. 

The office building was large and neat. The parking lot was rotted away and in dire need of repair, but beyond that, everything looked relatively new. Craig followed Tyler like a lost puppy. The building was a maze of walls and windows. People existed with in waiting rooms, their faces sunken and worn. Every soul was a shadow of a past to dark for light to reach. 

Tyler easily maneuvered past them. He lead Craig through the waiting room and off into an office not too far beyond that. The office was neatly decorated in child made drawings. A small table sat in the corner covered in toy cars and legos. Two chairs were set up along the wall. A desk was pushed to the side, buried beneath files and papers. Tyler moved instinctively to take a seat at the crowded desk. He shifted through it until he found a clip board. He motioned for Craig to take a seat at one of the chairs.

“We can start whenever you're ready.” 

Jay stared down at the puzzle he and Smitty had set up. His head hurt. He felt that he'd always been good at puzzles. They'd once been his favorite pass times when he was little. But his puzzles always had pictures of sorts. He'd ether solve his favorite Scooby Doo puzzle or he'd solve his grandma’s favorite forest puzzle. Point is, they always had a picture. This puzzle was blank. There was nothing. A milk puzzle. 

“Why do these exist?”

“Some people like the challenge.”

“Then why do you have this?” He frowned as the piece he'd been clutching onto for a while now refused to fit in anywhere. Useless just like the other pieces. Smitty took it and found its home instantly.

“It was a joke. A really long and not so funny joke.” He easily placed down a handful more pieces, finally finishing the border. 

“Why are you so good at this?”

“My mom used to write me messages on these puzzles, so I'd spend hours solving these puzzles.”

“Was that part of the joke?”

Smitty laughed, redirecting Jay’s hand. He scooped up a couple more pieces and thought back on his childhood, “Not exactly. Mom just used it as a way to talk to me. She worked night shifts so I barely got to see her. Solving her messages were always the highlight of my day.”

“Honestly though? That's adorable. What did she used to write?”

“Clean your room, that was a common one.” 

Jay let out this awful sound that was supposed to be a laugh, but he choked half way through it and proceeded to cough. He couldn't imagine how excited a small child would be trying to solve a message from their mother who the didn't get to see that often only for it to be something like that. He felt bad. 

“Your mom was mean.”

“She was creative,” Smitty corrected. Jay handed Smitty a couple more pieces he'd given up on. He watched how easily the other was able to spot what went where. 

“Did you clean your room?”

“You know? I don't think so. No.” 

Craig wasn't sure where to start. Of how for that matter. There was so much to talk about. He was staring down a graveyard of people, places, and thoughts, all of which were somehow connected by a single thread of string. It ran in circles. It was impossible to find the start of it. He figured he could start anywhere. But he was worried that if he didn't start at the right place, none of it would make sense.

“I had a friend I met during training. He was young. He was hopeful. He was a doctor.”

There. That was a good start. He ignored how his hands were already shaking. He found himself back at camp. He'd traveled across the states before he got sent over seas. When he'd met Brock, he'd been in South Dakota. It was freezing. He hadn't eaten regular food in months and missed it. He hadn't slept in weeks. He missed home. Brock was this smiling, goofy idiot who somehow made him feel at home. 

He was always there to supply them with a quick pun that made everyone groan aloud. He was full of jokes. The company loved him for his ability to keep spirits up. They'd all been so obsessed with how to survive, they'd forgotten that they could be happy too. Brock reminded them of that. It was never quiet when Brock was around. They got I to a lot of trouble because of him. They didn't mind. A good laugh was worth running an extra mile. 

Brock got sent home early when he got involved in a fight. No one really knew who started it. Rumor was that two young men got fighting and one pulled out his gun. Brock jumped in to defuse the distraction and keep the man from doing something he might regret. He took a bullet in place of another. 

When he left, there was no laughter. The sunlight offered had been devoured by a sea of clouds that only grew darker as time passed. People smiled a lot less. A few tried to be what Brock was. But none could amount. Craig felt glad for Brock. He was too gentle of a man to be in the military anyway. Perhaps the accident was a blessing in disguise. 

“I'm glad he got out when he did. Our doctor’s tent got bombed. That could have been him.” 

Tyler listened quietly to the recollection of the doctor. His clip board was littered in notes. He looked up at his client when silence fell over the two of them. Craig’s shaking had stopped, he noticed. Just as it had stopped when they had spoken about dogs when they'd first met. Craig looked up having remembered where he was again. 

“We have five more minutes left,” Tyler spoke. He felt his own voice a stranger against the stillness. Craig nodded. 

“Thank you, doctor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for lateness. Don't exactly know where I'm going with this fic lole


	4. Katrina

He hadn't found himself alone in his own home in weeks. Jay and Craig fell easily into his life and there they seemed to stay. He didn't mind. He loved them. They had just been a bit slow to leave the nest. It took Tyler’s request to take the two to physical therapy to get them out of the house. 

The stillness made him dizzy. He felt as though there was something, someone, that was supposed to occupy his attention and time. Now that he was alone for the first time in weeks, he didn't know what to do with himself. His own thoughts were all there was now to distract him. He'd kept them at bay for so long that they became like strangers. Their words were spoken in voices that weren't his. They whispered to him at first. Small things. Clean this. Take care of that. Remember to get these from the store. 

Every hurricane starts with light winds. The chores muffled his thoughts. Soon he ran out of things to do. The house was clean, the fridge was restocked, he'd dropped the rent check off. His thoughts had no tasks to remind him of. So it began to rain. 

The whispers grew in volume and mass. If there were no tasks to remember, they'd remember everything else. His house became a picture book of the past. The wall’s chipping paint was a bandage peeling away to expose the holes he'd done his best to cover up. The stillness created echoes of angry stomping above him. His figurines, gifts from his mother, lay shattered and smashed. The carpet was coated in shards of glass. Only a snow globe had survived the tantrum. The baseball bat found and struck everything. It had hovered over that globe. And it moved on to further destroy the TV. 

The door would slam. The car would start. He'd be alone to clean up the mess. His hands still stung from the fantom kisses of the broken glass. His cheek still burned from the swell of the bruise long ago faded. He got to his feet and made his way upstairs. His room had always been his sanctuary. The busted lock once forbid the monsters from getting in. The wood had splintered doing its best to keep them out the pounding had cut off the shouting and begging that slipped past. 

The room was no longer his. He wondered if it ever was. He felt a heavy weight fall from his shoulders when he left it. Craig now scared the bad days away, reminded him that he didn't have to lock himself in his closet to feel safe. 

The boxes were still there. Still untouched. Craig’s things had taken over, but his couple of boxes were still there. He spotted the snow globe instantly. Dust had cloaked it. Books sat beneath it, picture books. He remembered how sweet those moments had been. How it was the rare occasion of those moments that kept him trapped and scared. How desperate his broken heart had been that it easily accepted the poisons disguised as candies. 

He pulled the boxes free. He found his fingers drawn the the coarse texture of cars and letters from early on in the relationship. Neat pen scribbled across them all. At one point, the little poems had been strong and powerful with truth and pure admiration. But with each card he read through, the truth grew disheveled and tattered till it was nothing but beautiful lies. They both looked the same. The handwriting never changed. Each poem spat at him the same things, same words, same meaning. 

He pulled one of the letters onto his lap and read through it. It was noticeably unlike the others. The penmanship had been rushed, pure thoughts made spontaneously had been sloppily jotted down. It was when he'd realised the storm wasn't just rain and winds. Threats laced the thing delicately. They'd clearly been thought through. They scared him. 

He'd been young. Fear had told him he had nowhere to go. He'd never felt more trapped in an instant. It was one thing to be closeted. He was terrified of the consequences of coming out enough already. He'd thought himself lucky to have found someone who understood and was willing to keep them a secret. And he'd honored the promise. Not for long. Things turned sour and suddenly he stood besides a man telling him that he'd tell everyone, he'd force him out. 

Thunder screamed and lighting flashed. The bruises fell like hail. He’d spent nights in the bunker of his closet, comforting himself with picture books. They'd always made him feel better when he was small, they still made him feel safe. He wanted out. He didn't want to hide. He wanted to get in his car and drive to drier lands. 

But he was stranded alone and cold on a rooftop. He tried to break it up and cut it off. He'd tried to get away. The threat hovered heavily above him. He wanted to ask for help. He knew he needed it. But asking for help meant explaining why. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The water levels were rising quickly and he couldn't swim. 

Then out of the blue came his dragon in shining armor. He whispered false apologize and kissed away the bruises for a night. The sun had shone for the first time in months. He promised things would get better. He promised the storm was over. He promised no more winds, rain, hail, or floods. He promised no more fighting, no more shouting, and no more angry outbursts. He promised safety. He wanted to believe it. He tricked himself into believing it. 

But the storms came back. They always came back. Decisive is the eye of the hurricane. Suddenly Smitty wasn't allowed to talk to his friends or family. His captor needed to know his where abouts at all times. He wasn't allowed privacy. He wasn't allowed to watch TV, use the internet, or own a phone. He wasn't allowed to leave the house. And despite his new found captivity, the one who put him there believed he was cheating. And that had been it. That had been the droplet to break the dam.

The winds had wiped out houses, the rain drowned families, there were bodies bobbing in the rivers that once were streets. The fight they got into had ended in blood and tears. 

That's how he'd met Tyler. In the storm, he was drowning. His lungs were filled with water and he was tired of struggling to stay afloat. Tyler was a light in the distance he'd ignored. But Tyler never ignored him. Tyler’s job had always been to scavenge through storms to collect the ones still breathing. He pulled Smitty from the water and carried him safely to shore. 

Smitty had been terrified of Tyler at first. The cause of the storm had warped his ability to trust. He watched Tyler closely, always in wait and expecting the storm to return. But it never did. Tyler was a light house. And for the first time in years Smitty was safe. He learned to trust not all rain clouds brought hurricanes. 

He plucked the snow globe from its place and shook it about. The dust hid the small city inside. But he could still see the glitter swirl and fall. It had been snowing when Tyler came over to help cover the holes in the wall. 

He looked up towards his door. It's hinges were clean and relatively new. They'd been a pain to replace due to the splintered wooden door frame. But now there was no evidence of the hurricane. The two rebuilt. Smitty could live in peace knowing he recovered. But still he lived in fear that it would return. 

He stuffed the letters, the books, and the globe back into the box and returned it home. He fled from the room to attend to his blaring phone. He looked towards the skies and grinned at how brilliantly blue it was, not a cloud to be seen.

The boys came home and noise returned to him. The crushing weight of his unfiltered thought was suddenly lifted. He happily stepped back into his new found routine of running circles around the two. Craig was insisting on cooking. Without a moment’s hesitation, Smitty forgot about the storms that haunt his past and was focused on keeping the house under control. 

Jay would rush to his side and suddenly throw them into a lengthy conversation that would always guarantee a good laugh and smiles all around. The lighthouse had pulled in two others from their own storms and this house, once a tattered memory of hurricanes, now served as a safe house. It was smooth sailing ahead.


	5. Leave Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long hiatus. I totally forgot I completed the next chapter! Anyways, enjoy!

He sat silent before Tyler. Words floated about in his head but none were capable of fleeing from him. He stared dead at the floor as if some how, some way, it would help him. It only stared back, mocking him. He could feel Tyler’s eyes on him. They were judging. He knew he fucked up. 

“I didn't mean to,” he mumbled weakly. Tyler was a statue in the back of the room. His eyes were stone cold and emotionless. They never once left the patient before him. Craig knew the thoughts that radiated off of this gargoyle of a man. 

“What scared you?”

“What?”

“You attacked because you were scared. What scared you? Can you remember?”

Tyler was replaying what had happened in his head over and over struggling to understand his patient and the situation he'd been trapped in. Craig was gentle, he knew that. He didn't like causing harm to others. He prefered making friends more. The change was alarming. Lighthouses can't keep storms away. 

No matter how much light there is in a room, a shadow can always be found. Smitty was light. He was radiant. At least Jay certainly thought so. 

Craig had been in the kitchen tampering with the laundry machines. Smitty was drawn lazily over his couch, a book he'd tried to entertain himself with was resting against his chest, the page kept, but its reader had fallen fast asleep hours ago. Jay had become stricken sick with a sudden need to explore. After physical therapy he found that he liked moving. 

Normally Smitty would have accompanied him, however he'd passed out before Jay had the chance to ask him. Craig didn't exactly like it when he was left home alone. He'd hear the cars pass the house and worry about the people inside them and their intentions. He was grateful for Smitty’s company, even if he was asleep. 

The day had been tranquil. Most days were. It was stormy out. The weather man called for perhaps a week of rain, he expected some hail, and lightning. Winds were supposed to get out of control. It was dark out. Jay had wanted to go for his walk before the rain started to fall. He hoped to be home soon. He'd messed up on his timing. The rain fell in heavy, thick glops that shattered like glass on the streets outside. 

It was nothing. Just a storm. The weather was allowed to do that. Everything was fine at first. The rain set him on edge when it attacked the windows. He wasn't a fan of how hard the wind pushed on the house. He didn't like the way the hail hit the roof. Like rocks falling on helmets. Then the thunder sounded. Loud and angry. 

That's when he fell apart. The blasts reminded him of bombs. The one that took Ben, the ones that wiped out the nurse’s tents. The ones that ate his friends and tore apart his brothers. He suddenly wasn't home, safe and sound, but miles away with a gun in hand. His ankle was split open and bleeding everywhere. This would later be his ticket home but for now it was nothing more than his promised death. He was a sitting duck. Bombs continued to explode all around him. The earth it destroyed showered about him in heavy, blood made muddy clumps. He could hear the uneven and rushed set of steps racing towards him. This was it, he thought, this was the end. He looked to the sky and he thought of Ben. He thought of Brock. He thought of everyone he lost. He wasn't ready to give up yet. If he was going to die he wanted to go down fighting every step of the way. He let out a scream and lunged at his attacker.

Smitty had gotten up after a particularly loud blast of thunder sounded. The windows looked as if the house was being submerged under water. Trees were losing leaves and weak branches. He looked about nervously. Where was Jay?

He got to his feet and rushed up stairs first. He checked the rooms and began to panic when he found no one. He ran back down the stairs in a fit. Thunder as bad as this could easily trigger anybody! The second he rounded the stairs and neared the kitchen, Craig leapt at him. 

Smitty felt the tiled floor fall from beneath his feet. An arm was snug tight against his throat, blocking the air from getting into his lungs. The back of his head met the floor so hard his vision became spotted. His ears rang. The world span around in circles and he wanted to puke.

Craig didn't let up. He had no plan of getting up. He'd been trained not to. He knew to lock his arms, choke the life out of his captive and hold it just to make sure. He didn't want to let go too soon and regret it later. 

It wasn't Smitty he was strangling. It was an enemy soldier. He was doing his job. He could hear the shouts of men rushing towards him. His men this time. Hands caught his arms and began to pull. He didn't understand why they wanted him to let go of someone who was trying to kill them. He fought against them. 

He woke up in the middle of it all. His men turned into Jay. The bombs were thunder. The soldier was strangling the life out of was Smitty. He let go instantly. Smitty fell back in a fit of coughs and gasps. Jay waited a second watching Craig before darting over to help Smitty up.

“You ok?”

Smitty sat up. His hands instantly flew to his head. It was throbbing. His breathing had returned to normal. It took him a moment to realize he was being talked to. 

“Yeah. I didn't mean to-”

Bile ran up his throat and emptied onto the floor and half of himself. Jay began a steady flow of cursing. He pulled Smitty off the floor.

“Help me get him into the car.”

Craig just stood there. He was trapped between this world and the other one. Here he saw Jay and Smitty and home. There he saw Ben and chaos and war. Jay struggled to carry Smitty’s dead weight. 

“Damnit, Craig, help me!” He jumped into action at the given order. He pulled one of Smitty’s arms up and over his shoulder, taking some of the weight off Jay.

“Get him to the car, I gotta go find the keys,” Jay barked, handing Smitty off completely. Craig tossed Smitty in the back seat. The man was drifting in and out of consciousness. Jay darted out to the car, slamming the house door shut behind him. He pushed Craig into the passenger's seat and moved to work with Smitty.

“Hey, hey, hey. You can't sleep.”

“I'm tired-”

“I know. I know. But you can't sleep. We’re gonna get you to a hospital, ok? Can you stay awake long enough to get to the hospital?” Smitty nodded and instantly regret doing so. His hands fluttered to his throbbing skull. Jay shut the door and started up the car. He turned to Craig and handed him a phone. “Find the hospital.”

Craig wasn't sure who was more dazed, Smitty or himself. He watched as doctors rush Smitty away and Jay was quick to fill out paperwork. Tyler arrived not long after, still being an emergency contact in Smitty’s phone and eager to make sure his friend was still alive. 

Before long, Tyler was driving Craig home. Jay decided to stay at the hospital until Smitty was safe to go back home. It was quiet without Jay. Craig loved the man, don't get him wrong, but Jay was talkative and loud. Tyler was silent. His eyes remained locked on the road. He didn't turn on the radio. It was quiet.

Smitty came home late the following morning. Jay helped him up the stairs and made sure he was comfortable before gently closing the door to his room and excusing himself. He didn't talk to Craig. He didn't flip on the TV or make any food. He sat at the table and started working on a milk puzzle. Craig watched, uncertain if he should go and apologize to Smitty or leave him be. 

Tyler picked him up at the usual time that evening. The drive to the office had been equally as quiet as the drive home from the hospital. Craig felt the heavy chains of shame dragging slowly behind him. Tyler just stared at him a moment. He sighed and set his things aside.

“What happened was an accident. You didn't intend to hurt him. It was an instinctive response to fear.” Craig nodded. He wrung his hands anxiously in his lap. Tyler watched him a moment and frowned.

“I'm going to assign you homework, ok?” Craig glanced up uncertain of what was to come. Tyler flipped to a clean sheet of paper and began to scribble quickly. He ripped the page from its family and handed it over. Craig looked down curiously.

“Write down every last thing that scares you over the next week. Then write down things that helped calm you down. Can you do that for me?” Craig nodded slowly. Tyler smiled warmly capturing Craig’s attention once more.

“Good. And please don't beat yourself up about Smitty. He'll be ok.” 

Craig smiled at that. He shook Tyler’s hand as he always had during these sessions and excused himself. 

The house was dark and quiet. It had not been in such a state since the hurricanes only Smitty knew about had ruined it. He lay in his room and stared up at the ceiling. He was dizzy and sick and in a great deal of agony. The spinning fan above him didn't help him one bit. 

Jay knocked gently before stepping inside. The darkness hurt his light accustomed eyes. He struggled to spot Smitty amongst the mess of blankets atop his bed. He sat down near his feet and offered a soft smile Smitty couldn't see.

“You hungry at all?”

Smitty struggled to shake his head. His neck protested against the motion. He ignored the pain and struggled to conjure up his voice.

“No. Can I ask you to get me some more water though?” His hand moved shakily for the small plastic cup he had resting besides his lamp. Jay got up to obey the small request. 

He was halfway down the stairs when the door opened. Craig stepped inside with his head held low. He couldn't bring himself to look Jay in the eye. A large part of him was convinced that Jay hated him. He thought that he blamed him for Smitty’s pain. He couldn't blame him. He let Jay pass him, not willing to step in his way for fear of stressing the already strained relationship. 

He watched Jay disappear back up the stairs with a glass of water and he slowly slipped away into the kitchen. He set the paper down on the table and took a seat. The lines mocked him. The blankness of it ate away at him. His head was screaming at him to start writing. He was scared that if the tip of his dulled pencil touched the page that his heart would bleed out on the paper and he'd be left vulnerable for all to attack. He valued the wall he'd built around himself. It had done its job of keeping most of the nightmares away thus far. He was scared that if he tore it down, he'd never sleep again without seeing their bloodied faces. He'd see the army of men he couldn't protect and couldn't save. He was scared he'd see Smitty amongst them. He could never forgive himself.

He found his hand moving on its own. A shaky set of letters appeared on the lines. They were small, barely visible to the naked eye. His eyes locked onto his own weak words and he hated himself for letting them out. He crumpled the paper and saw himself to bed. 

Jay slipped out of Smitty’s room once he was sure his caretaker was comfortable. He glanced towards Craig’s door. He wanted to check in on his house mate and make sure he was ok. But he felt as though Craig didn't want to talk to him. He figured he should respect his space. Hesitantly, he returned down stairs to the nearly completed puzzle. His eyes fell on a wadded clump of paper that rested in the middle of the floor. He knelt down and took it into his hand. He carefully pulled it away from its ruined state and read the small print. He frowned at his discovery before tossing the paper into the waste bin it had been intended for in the first place. He looked towards the direction of Craig's room. 

He rushed to finish the puzzle. Once he'd had it completed he hunted down a red marker and began to scribble onto the pieces. He then pulled it apart and stuffed it back into its box. He scribbled Craig’s name across the top and left it in the center of the table before seeing himself to bed as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably gonna be a while till the next chapter. I'm working on a much longer series at the second, but I'll try to keep this one a little more updated


	6. Fear

There is no Purple Heart for PTSD. Tyler had worked at the VA for years. He'd seen every medal, heard of every reward, and saw every scar. There was no care for the mental health of those affected in the war. He knew that much. Every day, he'd see men and women as the shells of who they used to be. Corpses of people lost over seas but still somehow walking. They were alive, all of them, and wishing that they weren't. All whispered names of those they lost and muttered their regrets. If they could turn back the hands of time, they'd save them. They'd trade their lives. They'd do anything.

He walked down the halls and his ears, trained to the sounds of suffering, were eager to collect the broken promises that he passed. His eyes fluttered from hollowed face to hollowed face. The weight of their terrors and burdens and traumas was heavy on his shoulders and dragged behind him on a chain of responsibility. It was his job to save these people from the war they weren't yet done fighting. 

Though he wasn't one to ignore the fact that not all could be saved. There were some, not many, but enough who'd snapped beyond repair. 

Tyler had looked into the battles scars of many wounded and he had seen through a rose tinted glass the extent of their misery. The damages bombs, bullets, and combat created wasn't damage easily repaired. Permanent. It seemed everything was permanent. So it terrified him to think for even a second that the two he'd assigned to Smitty’s care could wind up as lost and hopeless as the soldiers still bleeding before him. 

He was anxious to see Craig’s list of fears and nervous to find a blank sheet besides the column meant for relaxation and calming tricks used. He was worried he had been assigned another hopeless survivor who died before he got back home. He was petrified that he'd see those bright eyes dull. Those cheeks sink. He was scared to think that the shadow of the past was a dark one that would never leave his side. He couldn't bear to see another man succumb to the war he was supposed to be done fighting. 

He felt guilty for calling Smitty so late, especially after the accident. He knew he should probably let the boy rest and leave him be, but it can take a village to help a broken man stand. He certainly couldn't do it alone. Smitty knew what he was doing. Empathy drove his actions and emotion was logically guided by the hand towards the direction of helping others. Tyler was certain that there was no other person on the planet more capable of assisting him in the healing of these two men more than Smitty. 

He heard the ringing and worried he'd be directed to voicemail. Of course he'd understand if he was. But his friend picked up at the third ring and answered with a groggy hello. 

For a second, the screams of the forgotten was silenced. The ache of broken bones was momentarily gone. The exhaustion caused by dragging along side him the unbearable weights of problems that weren't his own was no more. For a light to have any meaning in a storm, one must want it to have meaning. He smiled knowing that his friend could not see him. That didn't matter any. He smiled.

“Sorry to wake you, kiddo, you feeling ok?”

“Yeah, dad, I’m fuckin’ great. Tyler, do you have any idea what time it is?” In all honesty, Smitty didn't know as didn't bother checking a clock before blindly answering the phone. Still he figured that the sun was down, his room was dark, and the house was quiet. It had to be later than the standard time phone calls are considered acceptable. "I'm not a call girl you know. You know what? Never mind. Just know that I charge by the minuet!"

Tyler chuckled a bit on his end well aware that he shouldn't be calling. He knew that Smitty should be sleeping. But there were people out there who needed the proper remedy to take away a pain unknown to most. And there were very few with the recipe to do so.

“Yeah, its way past your bedtime. What are you doing still up, young man?” The small chuckle he got gave him the all clear to carry on with what it was he'd originally called about. 

The two spoke quiet and careful. Tyler didn't want any wandering ears to catch his words. Smitty didn't want to wake up the vets he housed. They spoke well into the night. They departed early the following morning and Smitty was suddenly far too aware of the homework he'd just been assigned. 

Jay woke up first. He left the house early that morning to go on his walk early and maybe pick up a few things from the store while he was out. 

Craig woke up next. It was weird not waking up to the sound of the fire alarm, laughter, or the soft mumbling of his house mates. The house was a shell now. The life it held was momentarily gone. He wasn't sure if he liked the new silence or not. 

He almost didn't want to get out of bed. But he hated staying still for too long. Is body soul rebel by flooding him with memories he worked hard to forget and he'd shake beyond control. So he got up with a disgruntled groan. Sleep hadn't fully left his body, only his mind. His legs were still heavy and slow. His movements were uncoordinated and sloppy. His eyes weren't yet accustomed to the light. The rain had left an uncomfortable chill in the house that made his arms and legs become riddled with goosebumps. 

He opened the door half expecting to see Jay in the den with the TV on and some burnt toast to munch on. There was nothing. He moved to fix that. He stopped when his foot hit something small and cold.

He looked down to see if it was another dinner plate loaded with food. He was startled to find a small puzzle box with his name on it. He stole a glance to the kitchen. Jay had been working on that damned puzzle for what felt like forever. He was so close to finishing it too, if he remembered correctly. 

Maybe a little distraction would do him some good. He set it aside on his bed to work on later. He sauntered down the stairs and to see what he could find in the cupboards for breakfast. Some toaster waffles did the trick. 

He was in the middle of suffocating the two little food discs with a heart attack’s amount of butter then drowning it in an ocean of syrup when Smitty stumbled into the kitchen. He let out a small curse directed toward the table leg that had snagged his toe before he greeted Craig warmly.

“Should you be up?”

“I've got a concussion, I'm not dying. Besides, I caught the smell of waffles and I figured sleep can wait. Are those the blueberry ones or the regular ones?”

Craig tossed Smitty the box and moved to sit down at the table. Smitty tossed a pair into their struggling toaster and took a seat across from him with a happy little sigh. Craig glanced up nervous. He hadn't been so nervous since when he was still in training. He and Brock had just completed a couple of tests and were anxiously awaiting their results. Brock had eased his worries away with a nice drink. Craig was still a year to young to follow his example. 

“You doing ok?” Smitty leaned forward just as Tyler had taught him. Craig looked up startled, well, more confused than startled but startled nonetheless.

“Me? Shouldn't I be asking you that?”

“Nope. The question was meant for you.”

Craig was quiet a moment. He glanced about the room in the wild hunt for a quick answer that Smitty might believe. A red flag for Smitty. He'd seen that look ten thousand times before. A lie was about to fall from this man’s lips. He was ready to shoot it down.

“I-”

“Bullshit! Oh shit. Sorry, you were supposed to say more and I just sorta jumped the gun.”

Craig stared at the man before him the way his parents had when he told them he was going to join the military. He opened his mouth to say something but there was nothing to say. Smitty had shocked the words right out from under his nose and left him speechless. Smitty leaned back, dropping his defenses with an aggravated sigh.

“Wow I suck at this.” He straightened himself out. Craig surveyed his caretaker do a second. How hard had he hit his head exactly? Was this a personality change? The doctor mentioned something about those. Maybe he should be concerned and call Tyler and Jay. Smitty shook his head once he reorganized his thoughts. 

“I'm sorry. I just- I spent years with someone who'd get the same look you do when they were about to lie to me. So why don't we start over and you'll answer with the truth? Are you doing ok?”

Craig wasn't sure if he should be impressed or feel bad. He dropped the want to create some excuse and wondered if silence was a better option. Honestly, these talks should be restricted to just Tyler, right? He did hospitalize Smitty. He deserved to know why.

“No. I'm not. I'm going to the doctors and I'm getting help but I have no way of telling if it's working. I have no clue if I'm less anxious or if I'm the same. I don't know if I'm broken or if this is normal. And if I'm a broken man, I don't know if I can be fixed. It's...it's terrifying to me. What if I hurt someone else? Or-or freak out again and kill you? It's- I don't know, paralyzing, I guess.”

He fell to silence once more after he spoke. He tried his best to ignore the slight tremble that returned to his hands. He hid them in his lap hoping that Smitty wouldn't notice. 

“Have you told that to Tyler?”

“Should I?”

“Well, I’m certainly not qualified to help you. But he sure is. You want me to call him?”

Craig nodded after a moment of thought. He figured he could ask Tyler all of the questions he's too scared to ask himself. He hoped Tyler would have the answers. He was scared he would. For some reason, he knew that he wasn't going to like the answers he got. That hurt to know. Like knowing it was his job to watch for mines. Knowing how many lives he took, how many enemy soldiers he sent back to their families in the wrong way. Knowing that those enemies were people too. Knowledge is power. Nothing good ever came from such a strong power. The answers he was after were going to hurt to hear. But he needed to hear them. 

Smitty got up to fetch his phone. Almost the exact second he left, the toaster released his waffles. Neither knew in that moment that those very waffles were going to stay there for the rest of the day. How were they supposed to tell the future?

Tyler stopped by to pick Craig up around noon. Jay still wasn't back. Smitty had gone off to take a nap. 

This starts the start of a twenty four hour countdown. None of the four really understood how so much could change in only twenty four hours although all had plenty of examples. None knew of what the future held for them in the palm of its hands. None were aware of just how impactful the next twenty four hours were going to be to them, to their relationships, to their lives. 

24:00:00. 23:59:59. And so on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all ready for this?


	7. Honest

The truth can be scary. Really, really scary. It can be painful to see or even to admit sometimes. People use lies to create this bubble of protection against the harsh reality of the world we live in. We use whatever we can to explain the unexplainable and our fictions help us sleep at night. The truth gives us our nightmares. The worst ones at least.

The truth is a room.

A darkened room. One that hides away a vault of secrets very few ever get the privilege to discover. Heavy doors barricaded tightly shut. No windows exist. There's not a ray of light to speak of. Everything’s dark. Standing alone inside, one would be left to wonder if they were anywhere at all. A heartbeat echoes brokenly through the thick walls. It's uneven and no one could possibly place where it's coming from. No matter where you place your ear against the cold metal walls, it's always just to the left, or maybe to the right. It's above you. Below you. You can't tell. There's no way to figure it out. Smoke fills the room. You don't know where from. You're not entirely sure it's smoke. But you can smell it. The pungent smell souring your lungs and burning your nose. It's getting hard to breathe. You feel around blindly for the door. You know there has to be a door. You just can't find it. The heartbeat you've been hearing picks up in its pace. It's getting hot. There's no where you can go. Everything you touch leaves burns no amount of a mother’s sweet kisses can heal. The heartbeat cuts off. You realize it all too late that it was yours all along. You don't know this, of course, until your body hits the scalding floor. Your back blisters and bleeds but you can't feel a thing. Not anymore. It smells nice all of a sudden. Like pork. The smell of smoke still hangs heavy but it reminds you of a gentler time you can't ever remember a time where it smelled like this. And then it's all gone. It's done. It's over with and you're left with nothing. It's dark. 

You're in a room. A vault. And around you there are secrets that hide the truth you're so eager to get at. But lies pull you away. And you, my friend, are blind and cannot see the difference. You need a light. With it you'd see just how hideous the truth is and how pretty and fake the lies are. That is how you can tell them apart. The truth is never pretty. But you can't possibly know that. You're blind. So how do you go about to find the truth? It seems this cycle never ends. Just when you think you've found it, you're on your back again. The smell of pork and smoke fills your lungs like water. And you wake up to start all over again.

That's the truth. Such a feeling doesn't burn as bad for some as it may for others. And just the opposite. Sometimes it's that very feeling that crippled a man. 

Craig refused to face the truth of things because of this. The truth is he has blood on his hands and a body count only he will know. He has this fear that he was still adding to that count. After all, he saw what he'd done echoed back to him through his dreams. And everything was always so vivid that he could never truly tell if he was awake or asleep. He couldn't tell the difference between what was real and what wasn't. Not any more. 

Such a feeling isn't exactly a good one. And it worked its way into Craig's mind and there it decided to stay. The only way he thought he'd ever be able to fight it off was by locking himself away where he couldn't hurt anyone else. 

Truth is? He was scared to live just in case this little reality he found himself in was a dream. He could probably walk out into a busy highway and get hit and not feel a thing. He'd just wake up and everything would be gone. Jay, Smitty, and Tyler, the neighborhood, everything.

He was quiet in the car. Mr. Brightside was playing softly over the static speaking radio. The windows were down to push his hair around and tickle him. Tyler sat besides him singing softly along, though admittedly he didn’t exactly know the words. Fake, Craig was certain this was all fake. Nothing good ever lasts this long. He turned and studied Tyler’s face. Maybe his teeth would start rotting and fall from his skull. Maybe his face would morph into some weird grotesque bug beast. Craig wasn’t sure what he was expecting would happen. All he knew was that he saw Tyler mindlessly singing along to a song neither could exactly hear all that well with a faint smile drawn about his face. No monsters. And his mind, while clouded and hazed over with smoke, relaxed a bit. He took in a sharp breath and found his chest didn’t itch when he did. His heartbeat was steady in the back of his head. He leaned back in his chair and watched the neighborhoods pass them by until the two made it to the VA office. 

Tyler wasted no time. The second the door to his office was closed he had his clipboard ready and pen in hand.

“How’ve you been, Craig?” He asked cheerfully. Craig wasn’t sure how he was supposed to go about answering him. Every answer he wanted to give felt like a blind lie. 

“Not the best.” 

Tyler took his seat and pulled his glasses on. His pen was scribbling away already. Craig slowly moved to take his own stray and organize his thoughts into a coherent sentence. He didn’t need Tyler’s encouraging “tell me about it,” but waited before speaking. 

He told Tyler everything. He expanded on his fears and worries. He told him about the instinctive panic attack that had hurt Smitty and how terrified he was that it could happen again. He was terrified that Jay hated him. He was terrified that this would all just up and walk away and he’d be back there, gun in hand, fighting for his life. He started slowly. At first his statements were small and vague. But as his terrors fell from his lips he’d found that there was no way to stop the heavy word flow no matter how hard he tried and his fresh tears were proof. Tyler was dead silent through all of this. His hand was spazzing in a desperate attempt to catch every keywords and joy it down while marking up the rest of his page with his notes and thoughts. 

Craig wasn’t sure when he’d stopped talking. He wasn’t sure where he’d left off at. It didn’t matter. He’d felt as if he’d effectively spoken his mind and while still fearful, it felt better, like a heavy weight had been plucked from his shoulders. Tyler finished up his sloppy notes and looked up at Craig studiously.

“You mentioned several times that you’re afraid of living. What do you define as living?”

What did he define as living indeed. Craig took a second to repeat the question over again in his head and found that he, himself, was equally baffled. When no answer came to him, one came to Tyler.

“I might have an idea. We need to get that heart of yours pumping fast again and in a safe and healthy environment. We need you to feel alive again. So, we have homework.” 

Tyler got up from his chair and took a seat beside Craig. He pulled out a clean sheet of paper and with his neatest handwriting, he wrote out a five step plan. One for every day of the remaining week. 

“Everyday we’ll go do something that’s exciting. We’ll start slow and I’ll be with you every step of the way if it ever becomes too much. The goal is that you won’t need me for too long. Everything will be safe and legal and you won’t be put in danger. But we need you to feel that adrenaline rush in a positive way again. So today, we’ll ride home a little faster than normal. Tomorrow…”

Tyler carefully and slowly explained the week’s plans. Craig wasn’t sure if this was really the best idea but figured that Tyler knew best. Besides,he trusted Tyler. This man would never hurt him. While shaky and unnerved, he knew that after all of this was said and done that he’d be fine. Maybe Tyler would be right in all this. 

Smitty was in the back yard knee deep in weeds. Jay stood on the porch watching. He had a pitcher of tea resting in the shade. A handful of ice cubes bobbed in a half full glass. A small basket no taller than a child’s sneaker but large enough to be a decently sized pan held a lovely collection of garden seed packets. Smitty’s phone was blasting music in the kitchen and it’s sound just barely floated outside past the back screen door. 

Jay found himself unbelievably happy. This sort of scenario only ever happened in cheesy movies or poorly written books. The feeling he had was one poets like to describe but is realistically indescribable. And he didn’t believe that he felt this way, what ever this way was, for one second. He couldn’t. He watched Smitty and felt the whole world slowly stop spinning. He felt a strange tightness hold his heart hostage and he was convinced that Smitty was the reasoning behind this. But this wasn't the feeling of love, no way. That wasn’t possible. These had to be the feelings of gratitude or hell maybe even appreciation, but not love. It’s needless to say that Jay was indeed lying to himself, too afraid to approach the truth. 

He turned away with a content sigh to grab a trash bag and help clear out the weeds gathered. He shook away the thought that he was willing to come up with any excuse if it meant he’d get to be a little bit closer to Smitty. He happily followed his host around, picking up and bagging every tossed dandelion that came his way. His skin burned when it brushed up against Smitty on accident. His face was a permanent pink and he hoped that Smitty would assume this was because of the sun. Jay tried hard not to stare for too long and not to laugh at everything Smitty said but he couldn’t help himself. 

Truth is, Jay was falling and hard and that scared him. Every part of him was screaming at him not to. He’d only end up hurting Smitty in some way or another. He willed himself to back away from this dangerous slope of chaos, did his best to distance himself from Smitty, and tried his hardest not to let his eyes linger on that boy’s smile. But try as he might it was hopeless. 

Craig came home a little later than normal. A smile adorned his face and it was a nice change to the anxiety pinned up eyebrows he usually had instead. Tyler had been right. Some positive adrenaline made him feel all the more better and so much more alive. They’d blasted music and sped down a dirt road. The wind had been sharp but he didn’t care. It made the whole experience that much better. And wen Tyler sped up even more and Craig got worried, not so much for them but for the car, he instinctively reached for Tyler’s hand and held it for the rest of the drive. It felt like that’s where it belonged. 

He was sad to see Tyler go. Just as Jay was sad when he had to leave to pick up some groceries. The two vets sat together at the table. It was dark now, the sun long ago laid to rest to slumber beneath the hills and clouds. The iced tea had been replaced by warm mugs of coffee Smitty had made only minutes before he left. 

“Things went well?”

Craig glanced up at Jay. Part of him worried that this was going to turn into a shouting match if he didn’t watch where the conversation went. He nodded, and hoped that it would suffice for an answer. It did. And yet it didn’t. Jay sat up in his chair and pulled it closer to the table. 

“Can I ask you something?”

Oh shit, here we go, Craig thought. His leg began to bounce beneath the table. He watched Jay cautiously. He nodded again.

“How do you know when… how… Love?”

“What?”

Jay felt small now. His hands fell into his lap and began to anxiously cling to one another. Craig had been able to pour his heart out to Tyler. Jay wasn’t sure how to do that. Still he tried. 

“I mean-so, say there was this person and they did things to your head. Not bad things though, good things. Like when they laugh, you feel happy and when they get hurt you get mad at whatever hurt them. You want to protect them and you want to be with them...that’s love right? But could it also be something else?”

Craig thought for a second. His brows knit together in a tight pinch. He found himself instinctively thinking of Tyler and he wasn’t entirely sure why. 

“I guess that depends on how you define love.”

It is important to be truthful about your fears and not to be afraid to tell the truth. Craig has been honest about his fears, and Tyler could attest, though not legally. Jay was trying to get over the lump in the back of his throat that still blocked out what he wanted to say but just couldn’t. He glanced up at Craig half expecting him to be mad that he’d yet to answer. But Craig was silently and patiently waiting and wasn’t expecting an answer at all. He was simply happy that Jay wasn’t mad at him. 

“I don’t know how I’d define love.”

“That’s ok. I don’t think it really has a definition anyways. It’s a feeling that your life gives meaning to.”

“But how do you tell when you’re in love?”

“It’s like…” Craig wondered off, now thinking aloud. He pictured Tyler and how he’d smiled and laughed. He thought of how perfectly Tyler’s hand fit his. He thought of how patient and gentle Tyler was and how that alone made Craig’s heart race around in his chest and now he knew that it was a good thing. “It’s like seeing someone and seeing the sun. It’s not being with them and being sad. It’s wanting what’s best for them, and them wanting what’s best for you. You know when you’re in love because there’s no other feelings out there quite like it.”

Jay was quiet. He let the words sink in and he smiled. Craig was right. He was absolutely right. He leaned back in his chair once more and brought the coffee to his lips.

“Who ever you fell for must mean a lot to you,” he commented, happy that Craig was still lost in his day dreaming space. It made him feel immensely better knowing that he wasn’t alone with these emotions. He was happy that someone else understood. Craig chuckled. 

“They mean the world to me.”

“Me too.”

At this very second, both boys realized that they had fallen hopelessly in love. Just as the clock’s 24 hour countdown struck zero. The room of smoke cleared up and a door opened letting a flood of light inside. The truth can set you free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy veteran’s day!! I haven’t forgotten about this or any of my other unfinished works just haven’t had much time to work on them. I wanted to post this chapter sooner but figured veteran’s day was perfect for it. Sorry for the long wait and thanks for your patience and love. I love you nerds too! 


End file.
